It's such an easy predicament to find ourselves in. It's a most
human predicament to be in: to want more, to want to
achieve more, to want to live more - and then after we have more, after
we've achieved more, after we've lived more, to then find out it's
not enough.

I'm
interested
in people who do have more, who have achieved more, who've lived more.
People like
David Bowie.
People like Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Richard Branson - not because
they're both knighted: rather I'm
interested
in what drives them. I'm
interested
in what motivates them. I'm also
interested
in the simple baseline story of how their lives turned out the way they
turned out. What
interests
me in particular is what some of them say about their lives, especially
what some of them say about living their lives in an elevated, rarefied
realm well beyond most of our wildest dreams and aspirations.

"Too much
is never enough" is, for me, one of
David Bowie's
most endearing comments. Listen: he's not being witty or clever when he
says it. For him, it's the truth. It's an accurate expression of
his experience: it's not enough. Sir Paul McCartney, a billion
and a half dollars of net worth fortune later, has
famously
and also endearingly
observed
one thing he's ongoingly afraid of is waking up one day and finding
himself poor - or of waking up one day and finding someone has written
a better song than his. People like Sir Richard Branson set themselves
bigger and bigger challenges in order to experience life to the
fullest. It makes me wonder: as admirable a goal as that is, is it a
count-on-able access to living life whole, complete, satisfied,
and fulfilled? Seriously. Is it really?

***
If you prefer not to know
Citizen Kane's ending,
read no further
***

<un-aside>

And then, of course, there's the admittedly fictitious but nonetheless
iconic
Citizen Kane
who, at the end of a long life of
vast
influence, colossal accomplishment, and croesian amassed
wealth, wanted only one thing on his deathbed: his childhood toy, his
sled, his
"Rosebud".
Evidently all his living life to the fullest didn't count for much in
the end.

What is that? What is that which flies
in the face
of what we assume life is all about: to have more, to achieve more, to
live more, and then after we have more, after we've achieved more,
after we've lived more, to find out it's not enough? What's that? Did
we get it all wrong? Did Life
play
tricks on us?

It's not that Life
played
tricks on us. And as for "Did we get it all wrong?", it's probably not
that entirely either, although arguably we - collectively, as a group,
as a culture - misguidedly decided a long, long time ago that living
life to the fullest required having more, achieving more, and living
more, and it was this
well‑intentioned
yet misguided decision which became ingrained on our planning for
what's needed to live a full life, from then on - yet ultimately, as
David Bowie
notes, even when such planning succeeds beyond our expectations and
produces
too much,
it's still not enough. It's never enough.

That's why these days, although I unabashedly admire them, I'm less
impressed by
mavericks
who plan to build spacecraft to offer vacations beyond our Earth's
atmosphere to the private sector, as I am by
regular guys
who are willing to tackle ie who are willing to inquire into the
possibility of being whole, complete, satisfied, and fulfilled right
here and right now exactly the way we are and
exactly the way we aren't, with nothing added and with nothing taken
away. For me, it's not as remarkable to consider the possibility of
living life to the fullest, as it is to consider the possibility of
living life from the fullest.

Without the latter, none of the former is worth much anyway. Really it
isn't.
David Bowie
already knows this.
Citizen Kane
waited too long to find out.